Readers' comments

Cancun's rewetting agreement focuses on human-induced drying of peatlands. While this will surely reduce the current problem of smouldering fire phenomena (global release between 10 to 45% of man-made carbon emissions if one sums up the few studies available), it will still be a major problem because of:

1) Naturally occurring drying of peat lands in some parts of the world will continue (i.e., climate change to warmer/drier conditions)

2) Smouldering peat fires burn prefossil fuels and thus are the only carbon-positive fire phenomena (beside coal smouldering fires, which burn fossil fuels). This creates feedbacks in the climate system because soil moisture deficit and self-heating are enchanted under warmer climate scenarios and lead to more frequent fires.

3) Warmer temperatures at high latitudes are resulting in more frequent Artic fires. Unprecedented permafrost thaw is leaving large soil carbon pools exposed to smouldering fires for the fist time since millennia.

We are talking about accidental and natural burning of fossil fuels, and the longest continuously burning fires on Earth. But current efforts to understand and stop smouldering fires are not proportional to the threat.